Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend with your loved ones. We headed to WI to spend the weekend with my parents and brother. My sister and Trevor weren't able to come home this year, due to them just buying a home and their wedding fast approaching. We missed them very much but we will be seeing them in a few months :)

We had an AMAZING Christmas this year...my family are some of the most generous people I know. They spoiled us and Mason...we came home with such awesome gifts. We had a pretty low key and relaxing holiday weekend. We stayed in for the most part, it was too cold to be outside but we ate way too much food and treats, drank lots of beer and wine, made some great memories and had lots of laughs. I love my family!! :)

Playing with Mommy's new gloves...

Thank you 2012 for your technology! We opened gifts with Debbie & Trevor with Google+ and we connected my brother's computer to my parents flat screen tv!

We have a climber in the house!

Joe opening his gift from Santa....a home brew kit! He LOVED it.

Getting some help from Mommy...this gift opening thing is exhausting!

Completely worn out after opening and playing with all his new gifts!

Mowing Grandma & Grandpa's carpet was his favorite past time this weekend...

Snuggling and laughing with Grandma...

Mason with Grandma & Grandpa...

Over the weekend, Joe, Mason and I drove into Chippewa Falls to drive through Irvine Park to look at the lights. It was so pretty and really got us in the holiday spirit! It was their 25th year of putting the display on, so they went all out. Very cool and worth the drive in to see it!

When we got home today, Mason had a few gifts left to open from Santa. We had planned to be home for Christmas but our plans changed last minute, which threw off Santa's plan as well...so we had gifts delivered to both my parents and our house this year ;)

From our family to yours...hoping you had the merriest of christmases and wishing you the happiest of new years! 

december highlights...

This month has FLOWN. Here we are on Christmas Eve's Eve....unreal! It's been busy as ever! We had Joe's work Christmas party at Granit City a few weeks ago and then my co-worker's daycare was having a parents night out at her center near our work, so we took advantage for a date night! Although taking a nap is always at the top of my list, we decided to catch a movie instead. We went to Twilight...OMG. I only got through books 1-3, never got around to reading the fourth so I didn't know what to expect. And that resulted in me not breathing for 20 minutes during the big fight scene. Wow...it was such a good movie, I loved it! And it was really nice to get out for a night too.

We also visited the doctor's office 3 times in a week. Mason had an ear infection a few weeks ago and had some eye gunk, which our doctor thought it was residual from the sinus infection we battled for a month and said the antibiotic would take care of it. Even though the gunk improved, it never went away. After 2 weeks without any improvement and a sleepless night of screaming every time he laid down, Joe took him in. It was a double ear infection and was pretty severe that they gave him the antibiotic with a shot. We went back in 2 days later to check the improvement, it looked better but still infected. So after another shot, he was also give a 5 day antibiotic. If this continues, we are pretty sure we are looking at tubes, UGH. I know it would make our life easier afterwords but I don't want to deal with the actual procedure...but I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there. At least he's back to normal now and we are enjoying the last week of health. It's been a while since we've seen a healthy and sick free Mason!

My parents visited us last weekend and we had a nice visit. We had lunch at Acapulco, which is always delicious! And we are home in Wisconsin this weekend. We had planned to only be able to stay through today but at 3:15 on Friday, Joe called and said he got Monday off so we are staying through Tuesday now. It's been so nice to be at home...but I've been eating WAY too much...it's hard to not snack on all the goodies in the house, while also sitting on your bum all day :) Tis the reason right?

I will have a full update of our christmas weekend and pictures later this week. From our family to yours, we wish you all a very Merry Christmas! Hoping your holiday is filled with lots of love, food and laughter!

Meeting Santa & First Snow!

Mason met Santa this weekend! On Saturday, we headed to Northtown right when it opened at 10am and still ended up waiting in line for 1.5 hours. We thought we'd beat the crowd, HA! That didn't happen...but Mason did SO good. He hung out in his stroller almost the entire time and was content playing with his toys or munching on cheerios.

However, once he was in Santa's lap, it was a completely different story! Here are the pictures from Mason's first encounter with the jolly elf himself!

After visiting with Santa, we did a little shopping and grabbed lunch at the food court. When we walked out around 1pm, there was NO line. Lesson learned...go after lunch next time!

The only thing that kept Mason from screaming his head off was a dancing and singing tree. It was on the counter as we got closer to the front of the line and Mason was mesmerized by it, waving and saying hi to it as it danced. We ended up grabbing it while he was on Santa's lap and it was the only thing that made him stop crying. On our way out at the checkout, we asked the clerk where they got it. He said Walgreens. So we stopped at a few Walgreens on the way home and were told it was actually from last Christmas and not available. Being pretty bummed, we stopped by the Walgreens by our house to pickup a few redbox movies we had reserved and Joe went in just to check...and got the LAST one! So excited, we pressed his foot to start him and Mason bawled his eyes out. He was now terrified of him. He doesn't cry anymore but hasn't warmed up to him either. He will avoid any area the tree is in, unless he is clutched to me. We just can't win with this little boy :) And here is the new addition to our Christmas decor:

On Sunday, we had an epic snow storm. Here is the final measurement from our house!

And with the first snow of the season, also came Mason's first encounter with snow. He LOVED it. Here are some pictures from our adventure.

I'll leave you with a picture of Mason's new favorite sleeping spot...yep, that's our bed. Le sigh....we were able to hold out for a year but somehow we've fallen into the black hole of co-sleeping. He will usually spend the first half of the night in his crib but ends up with us during the middle of the night. It's a horrible habit we've gotten into but we also secretly love having him with us, snuggling up all cute during the night. And it's future Laura & Joe's problem, right? I know we'll live to regret this decision but that battle will be for another day...right now we are just enjoying our little man because he is growing up right before our eyes and we only get him this little for such a short period of time!